Now there is speculation that the vacant seat could be filled by another former Labour Sports Minister, the redoutable Kate Hoey.

Her name is firmly in the ring, ABAE sources inform insidethegames.

At 67, Hoey is still punching her weight politically as MP for Vauxhall, a Constituency which embraces London's most prestgious boxing club Fitzroy Lodge, where she is an ardent supporter.

A long-time fight fan, such an appointment would be propitious at a time when women's boxing, of which she was an early advocate, is burgeoning.

It would also appeal to the prickly international governing authority International Boxing Association (AIBA), from whom ABAE have been suspended because of alleged technical breaches of regulations, and by funding body Sport England.

Meantime, the reforms brought in by Caborn, including a re-constituted Board, may not get the full approval of boxing's blazers at an Extraordinary General meeting in Sheffield next Saturday (October 5) when Caborn almost certainly would have been deposed had not resigned
already.

Should this be the case the position of chief executive Mark Abberley, who worked closely with Caborn, could be under threat.

Whether these much-needed attempts at modernisation will be enough to nudge AIBA into lifting the pernicious ban remains to be seen but the likelihood of ABAE changing their title to English Boxing, finally eliminating the word amateur - the last UK Olympic sport to do so - must certainly be perceived as progressive.